During the 1991 budget debate, The Wall Street Journal called Assemblyman Tom McClintock "The G.O.P's Last Angry Man in California." Human Events magazine named him one of the nation's "Ten Young Conservative Leaders," and the O'Leary-Kamber Report predicted he would be one of the 30 political leaders across the country "who will lead the '90's."
As Director of the Center for the California Taxpayer, McClintock has conducted the most comprehensive survey of state government waste available and has published numerous articles on the state's finances. He is regularly quoted in budget and fiscal stories from Sacramento.
McClintock was first elected to the California Legislature in 1982 at the age of 26, and immediately earned a reputation as a freshman who was unafraid to stand up to legislative leaders. Within two years, he became Assembly Republican Whip, a leadership position he held for five years until he broke with GOP leaders who were seeking tax increases in 1989.
In 1987 he jointly authored the Mello-Condit-McClintock Tax Rebate Act, which returned $ 1.1 billion of tax over-collections to the taxpayers of California.
McClintock earned national attention for his leadership against the 1991 state budget, (which imposed nearly $1,100 of new taxes on an average family of four), and for his accurate forecasts of California's developing fiscal crisis.
In 1990, McClintock was the first legislator to endorse Proposition 140, which cut legislative spending and imposed term limits on entrenched incumbents.
In 1992, McClintock authored California's lethal injection death penalty law.
For a period of four years, beginning in 1978, McClintock wrote a newspaper column which he syndicated nationally in 1980. From 1980-82, McClintock served as Chief of Staff to Senator Ed Davis. He is a recognized expert in parliamentary law and is designated as one of the fewer than 2,000 Professional Registered Parliamentarians in the United States by the National Association of Parliamentarians.
Tom McClintock has been active in Republican politics since 1972. From 1973-1974, he served as president of the California Student Republican Organization; from 1979 to 1981 as Republican County Chairman for Ventura County; and from 1985 to 1992 as Resolutions Chairman for the California Republican party.
In 1984, McClintock was named one of five outstanding young Californians by the California Jaycees and received the civilian Medal of Merit from the Ventura County Peace Officers Association for rescuing an elderly man from a condominium fire in 1985. He has been honored by numerous taxpayer associations around the state for his leadership on state budget issues.
McClintock left the legislature in 1992 to make a bid for Congress against a Democratic incumbent in a district where George Bush received 29% of the vote.
McClintock currently is the Director of the Center for the California Taxpayer, a project of the National Tax Limitation Foundation. The Center is a taxpayer watchdog group, reporting on California tax and fiscal policy and state government waste. He also is a contributing editor of California Political Review magazine.
McClintock was born in White Plains, New York in 1956, and moved to Thousand Oaks, California with his family in 1965. He attended Thousand Oaks High School and the University of California at Los Angeles, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in 1978. He married Lori Huizenga in 1987. The McClintocks currently reside in Thousand Oaks with their two children, Shannah Colleen, age 4 and Justin Thomas, age 2.